


for lives to open up

by ag_sasami



Series: WIP Amnesty [2]
Category: Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, M/M, Making Out, Making Up, WIP Amnesty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-04-22 17:34:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22196923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ag_sasami/pseuds/ag_sasami
Summary: "I thought I might not ever get to be this close to you again.”Because you don’t give second chances to have this kind of trust, he doesn’t say.
Relationships: Tim Drake/Kon-El | Conner Kent
Series: WIP Amnesty [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1597828
Comments: 1
Kudos: 32





	for lives to open up

One night back and weekends back at the Tower already feel strange. There’s something nostalgic and at once disruptive about actually getting to sleep with some amount of regularity. He’s unpacking things, the same old drawers but an entirely different life. Bart is alive. Kon is alive. Bruce is alive. Steph is alive. He’s the leader of the Titans again. Everything is the same. Everything has changed. The relief is bone-deep but he is still inexplicably unsettled. 

Tim unzips the Red Robin costume, and he thinks he probably should have done this before he started putting his weekend life in order. The costume is dropped in pieces as he peels the tights from his legs. Everything drops to the floor as he heads for the bathroom, the only mess in his otherwise sterile-clean space. It helps the sense of unrest in his head some to leave some controlled disorder in his wake. He keeps the shower on the verge of scalding to wash away the city smog and the blood and the cloying layer of combat. Under the water and the heat he’s clearing his head of battle and adrenaline-fueled decisions, trying to set his mind at ease again. 

_ Things are finally good again, Timmy. Pull yourself together _ . 

Things _ are _ good; much better than they’ve been in a long time. He has his family, his friends, his team. Except that things feel like Young Justice and Bruce’s disappearance all over again, and he feels more than remembers the sting. It’s that horrible sense of insecurity: not that he is incapable, but knowing that no one else has any faith in him. It’s Dick making Damian his Robin. It’s feeling insane because no one believes what you know is true but can’t prove yet. It’s Kon questioning his authority the moment he steps in to lead.  _ That  _ betrayal wouldn’t hurt so much if it hadn’t been done before. 

_ No, not betrayal. He didn’t know. Shit, maybe I  _ am  _ brooding too much. _

Cold air assaults him as he turns off the water, and he stands in the chilling room, dripping wet, gooseflesh prickling up and down his limbs. He’s toweling off when there’s a knock at his door. Four short raps. Impatient. Physically restrained. Superboy. 

“Just let yourself in, Kon.” He calls as he pulls some shorts on. The knock is a formality when Kon can take apart the lock with his TTK, an ability he used to take great pleasure in pointing out. Regularly.

“Hey. I thought I’d see if you—“ Kon trails off midsentence as he closes the door behind himself. 

“If I what?”

“If you uh, needed any help. Settling in.” And that  _ had _ been the plan when he walked in, but well, plans aren’t really his specialty. Particularly when Tim is wearing nothing but some loose shorts slung low on his hips and his hair is stuck to his neck, water slipping down across his collarbones, down his chest. Tim is all lean muscle on his small frame, but the last few years have been good to him. No longer is he the kid verging on scrawny that Kon remembers. Though Tim was never anything less than intimidating, he’s now impressive too.

“Nah I think I’ve got it handled.” Slowly, Kon’s been stepping in closer, invading space seemingly unaware of his progress. But he reaches out here, barely two feet away, and slips his hand along Tim’s jawline. Cautious like he thinks Tim will bite. 

“Tim. I.” he swipes him thumb across Tim’s bottom lip, fingers callus free and warm. “I—” leans in and follows the path of his thumb with his mouth. They haven’t done this since their Young Justice days. Then it was secrets stolen in dark hallways, bodies pressed down in the grass when they were meant to be on patrol. Back when he was still just “Rob,” and Kon was  _ shamelessly _ arrogant. It was good then, before the blistering sense of betrayal that Kon didn’t trust him, wouldn’t follow his lead. Tim never let him get that close again, even after their friendship recovered and they knew he trusted them enough to know his name. It feels like a lifetime ago, and he didn’t even realize he had been waiting for it.

So much time passed between them and a thousand opportunities to steal away like this untaken. Kon’s lips pressed against his soft and warm and insistent now that Tim is returning the kiss. Still slow and soft but prying, like Kon is trying to systematically map him out all over again. And he knows that’s part of this at least when he laps at a scar that cuts through both his lips, one acquired since the last time Kon pushed him up against a wall just to taste him. 

Right now though, Tim wants to have this in its entirety. So he slips his fingers into Kon’s belt loops and tugs his hips in closer and opens his mouth into the kiss. Kon’s breath stutters against Tim’s mouth as he drags his hold down to Tim’s own hips, tight enough to bruise. He pulls his mouth away from the kiss roughly, presses his lips to the skin behind Tim’s ear.

“God I’ve missed you.” He sighs against his neck. Tim chuckles darkly. Tugs him back a few steps by his belt loops again until his knees hit the bed. “I’m serious.” Pushes Tim back onto the bed. “Do you know how hard it is to be your best friend and know that I can’t touch you because I screwed up so badly when we were still stupid kids?” And it’s funny because they are  _ still  _ stupid kids in some ways, and a few years shouldn’t mean as much as they do.

“Kon…” Tim’s voice is soft, but his tone is laced with warning, so Kon kisses him to stop the oncoming derailment. Crawls over top of him, settling back on his hips and leaning over.

“No. I’ve missed you for so long it’s not funny.” Nuzzles at his neck, twines their fingers together on either side of Tim’s head. Then Kon’s just there, pinning him down and staring down at him. The only word he can think to describe it is  _ reverent _ , because Kon is staring at him with this strange intensity, like he’s calculating Tim’s fragility.

“What?”

“Nothing man, it’s just. I thought I might not ever get to be this close to you again.”  _ Because you don’t give second chances to have this kind of trust _ , he doesn’t say. 

“I don’t know if I can handle a serious and sentimental  _ Conner _ .” Kon laughs then, a soft bright sound unfamiliar to Tim.

“C’mon, just let me have this for a minute before you go all bat on me.”

“Yeah, okay.”


End file.
